Heating or cooling a 6,000 square foot house uses scarce resources. Moving a 1.5 ton vehicle around the road uses scarce resources. An individual who is serious about protecting the environment, even if they are able to afford the 6,000 square foot house or the 1.5 ton vehicle, will not purchase such items unless they have a legitimate need.
Who determines that need? Who determines what the "cut-off" is for an appropriate sized house or car and what isn't? Like I said, this is a socio-political issue. While your point is taken that someone should not buy something larger than they need, I definitely am not ok with going somewhere where someone is condemned or criticized because of their choice of size. It demands we establish an imaginary line and I'm not comfortable establishing that line in a free society for anyone but myself.
Re:When you have hiked every trail in every
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Tilting At Windmills
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So your position, apparently at some level an environmentalist, is we should make everything close to humans as ugly as possible and just have little natural reserve pockets in National Parks and other things that are far away from humans?
That's exactly why so many people think environmentalists are wacko. Some of us would like to have our immediate environment green, natural, and enjoyable without having to drive 100 miles to a national park. Taking care of the environment isn't just about protecting 5,000 square miles of a national park and feeling good about building the hell out of a local metropolis and destroying what little of nature remains there... it's about making the best use of the environment everywhere... even in urban areas.
That's brilliant. Let's build major power plants hundreds upon hundreds of miles away from the point where the power is needed. Let's triple our costs building the infrastructure needed to get the power from A to B. Let's waste half our power in transmission line loses.
Tripling the cost of nuclear energy would still be less than the cost of our dependence on foreign energy. A very small price to pay.
And let's build it hundreds of miles away from all of the people we'll need to work there on a daily basis.
We've built military bases hundreds of miles away from all the people needed to work on them. Guess what happened? Small towns sprouted up right outside the military bases. This is just as much a matter of national security, the exact same thing would happen.
In my book, if you got a swimming pool, more bedrooms, and bathrooms than people living in the house, and own a vehicle that ways over 3000#'s you are not a environmentalist.
Confirming the increasingly common viewpoint that "real" environmentalists are poor, socialist-inclined liberals. Environmentalism is really a socio-political movement, not a scientific movement based on concern for the environment. Otherwise, how many rooms are in your house would not even be mentioned jokingly in defining whether or not someone is an enviornmentalist.
For the most part, these groups are comprised of rich folk not wanting their property values to drop, people who don't give a whit about the environment but want the view to be "pretty" by their standards,
What's wrong with that? I'll mostly ignore your unnecessary digs and stereotyping against rich people and property values, but whether I'm rich or poor, do I really want to have the beautiful countryside (or hillside, or whatever) visually contaminated by dozens or hundreds of large windmills? Absolutely not! There is more to the environment than just CO2 in the atmosphere. There's also leaving some parts of the wilderness to be in their roughly original form for future enjoyment of both man and beast.
I hate driving through beautiful Southern California (yes, I love the desert) and seeing a huge solar facility just northwest of Four Corners, or that huge wind farm by Palm Springs. You're just out there enjoying nature and the entire view is filled with man-made nonsense that is supposedly envrionmentally "friendly." So instead of generating some invisible CO2 which plants need to generate oxygen, we instead use "clean" alternatives that destroy thousands of acres from a visual, natural, and ecosystem standpoint. Which is really worse on the environment?
In my opinion, we should build some mega-nuclear power plants in the middle of Nevada, hundreds of miles away from any city larger than about 200 people. Use that to generate all the electricity the country needs, 100% clean, no dependency on foreign energy, and we could use it to generate the hydrogen for fuel cells for our cars. We could almost entirely withdrawl from the Middle East and wouldn't even blink if/when the cost of petroleum exceeds $200/barrel. We could be 100% energy independent and 100% clean in a friggin' decade without any need to wait around for "alternative energy" that isn't ready for prime time yet. We have the technology now. We just need to decide to use it.
If the cycle continues it will certainly, without a doubt, lead to the death of us as a civilization, whether we were the cause or not.
The death of our civilization? This is exactly the kind of fear-mongering that causes environmentalists to lose any shred of credibility they may have had.
Mind you, I'm not tree hugging hippy, but it would be nice that, should we go extinct, that we don't take everything with us. That implies that, once you die, well, who gives a crap? Charge up stuff, my heirs will pay it. Pollute like crazy, I won't be around to suffer the consequences.
We're talking extremes here. As long as there are humans, yes, I want to make sure we leave it in the same or better condition than we received it. But there's no inherent reason that we should go to great lengths to "save the earth" if doing so is to the detrement of humans. Sorry, we're the dominant species and we should act in our own self-interest. Many times that will also be in the interest of other speices. When it isn't, our own self-interest comes first.
And what kind of argument is your no action being better than action? I guess you don't care that not only ecosystems go desert, but that the population from that region dies? 1 Billion people die so you can keep driving your status quo? Or work on trying to improve technologies to reduce emissions, ideally while increasing throughput. Me, I vote for the latter.
Like I said, if taking action would result in decreased wealth that would ultimately kill 2 billion (rather than 1 billion), then yes, doing nothing saves a billion lives and that's the course of action I'd advocate.
I am not saying efficiency isn't important, but you don't seem to understand, if the tipping point to global warming is 10,000,000 additional tons of CO2 (I'm making that number up), it doesn't matter that the ROI of the new technology that generates 10,000,000 additional tons is a few hundred million dollars, it matters that the tipping point was reached.
True, assuming that passing the "tipping point" really causes some major disasters. If it just warms the planet, scorches some earth, and leads to a billion deaths but taking action slows the economy and makes us unable to feed 2 billion people, I'd rather go past the tipping point and go with the 1 billion deaths rather than 2 billion.
Of course all these numbers are made up, but we can't rush blindly into a "save the environment" mode without very careful and honest evaluations of the impact on the ecomomy. Killing the economy could very well kill more people than "killing" the environment. Do I know that's the case? No, I don't think anyone does. But it's high time that people realize that mucking with the economy can be just as dangerous as mucking with the environment.
The problem is, the earth doesn't give a crap about how much money a country makes, doesn't care about GDP vs. ROI vs. any other acronym. It doesn't care how efficient or inefficient our factories are with respect to pollution.
No, but humans do. And should. We CANNOT adopt an "environment at any cost" approach. Other than our own survival, there is no particular reason to "save the planet." If the human race goes extinct tomorrow, do we care if the planet still is green or is a barren rock? A few extreme environmentalists might, but pragmatically speaking, if we aren't on this planet, it really doesn't matter if earth is a copy/paste of Mars or if it's a lush green paradise.
Now if humans survive, sure, I'd like to maintain the planet so it's a nice place to live in. Not because I particularly care if a particular species of insect goes extinct, but because it's nice to live in a nice, green planet. But my interest in "saving the planet" is really an interest in saving ourselves.
So... if, in an extreme case, we calculate that "saving the world" (i.e., stopping generation of CO2, or whatever the environmental prescription is) causes us to generate lower economic activity (and it must, it's an absolute certainty), and that lower economic activity results in less wealth which makes us less able to feed our people and keep us healthy. Let's say that costs 2 billion human lives. If the cost of ignoring the CO2 problem caused certain areas to go arid and lead to the starvation of "only" 1 billion humans, it turns out that no action is better than action!
I really don't care what's good for the planet. I care what's good for man. That may sound crass, but it's the only truth that makes sense unless you think the planet is a god and that a bunny rabbit is as important as any given man. People that believe that are too extreme to contribute anything useful to the debate.
Humans care about those acronyms, but ecosystem doesn't care. Look at it this way (using smoke as an example). Everyone in a community works at a factory, which has a woodburning furnace. Everyone else burns wood to heat their homes. The factory is more efficient in using the wood to make stuff. Obviously homes produce squat. The homes overall produce 40% of the smoke, and the factory makes up the rest. More efficient processes allow the workers to make more stuff, but the smoke output stays the same.
Does the environment give a crap that the factory makes more stuff while producing the same amount of smoke? Or does it care only about the quantity of smoke?
Of course the environment doesn't care. But we do. We recognize pollution as a necessary evil. So if we recognize that we're going to create it, we should at least make sure we're getting as much bang for our "pollution buck" as possible. That means efficiency is important.
The comparison to home vs. industrial is not a valid comparison. I'm not saying that people should freeze in the winter so that a factory can run its operations. But it's not valid for people to criticize the U.S. as the #1 producer of CO2 without considering the worldwide economic benefit derived from it.
The environment got along well long before man arrived, got along well while we were relatively small in population. Obviously we don't want to go back to those days, because that would mean a massive dieoff of us. But it may mean we end up subsidizing other nations so we are all efficient, and incentives set up to continue to work on reducing our wastes being released to the environment
Well, there ya go. Now you're saying that we might have to subsidize less efficient countries. Perhaps. But how are you going to find out who is inefficient? By dividing per capita pollution by per capita GDP... exactly like I said.
Uh, we aren't talking about money, we are talking about pollution that could impact the global ecosystem. It doesn't matter how much money is generated/consumed, it matters how much CO2 is released to the atmosphere... Does it matter if a nation earns 30 trillion dollars while emitting 3 trillion tons of C02?
Yes, it does matter. Because unless you're what could only be called an environmental wacko, you will realize that economic activity is absolutely, positively necessary. You will also recognize that this economic activity will produce some amount of impact on the environment. We don't want economic product to decrease because it's economic productivity that creates wealth, and without wealth we cannot maintain the health of the people of this world (*)--we can't feed them, we can't take care of them medically, etc. The wellbeing of the world depends on economic activity.
So if we recognize that economic activity is what feeds and maintains the world, we recognize that we should not decrease economic activity. Thus the question is, how can we generate the most economic output compared to the impact on the environment? You can measure and compare that by taking the per capita carbon output and dividing it by the per capita GDP (**).
So, yes, it does matter how much money (wealth) is generated. If I produce 10 tons of CO2 and generate only $10 of wealth, I'm actually doing more of a disservice to the world than someone who produces 100 tons of CO2 but generates $1000 of wealth.
(*) Typically, someone at this point will complain about the unequal distribution of wealth in the world. I don't deny there's an unequal distribution, but that doesn't change the fact that the world cannot be maintained without the generation of wealth. How it is distributed is a different issue than impact on the environment, though I think many people that believe in global warming are using the environment in an effort to redistribute wealth. And that's why this is a political issue rather than a scientific one these days.
(**) This assumes that we agree that CO2 is the major pollutant that should be measured. Personally, I'd be more concerned with things that dirty the air rather than CO2. I'd rather generate a 1000 tons of CO2 than 10 tons of smoke from burning coal. But whatever the measure of pollution is, the per capita production of that pollutant must be divided by the per capita GDP to find out who the worst offenders are. Someone that produces only 1/100th of the pollution that we are but is only generating 1/1000th the wealth is not generating enough wealth for the amount of pollution they are generating.
No, carbon trading doesn't even minimize the cost of reducing global warming--at least not on a global basis. Yes, an individual company or country might be able to minimize its cost by selling their excess carbon allocation, but that becomes a cost to whoever buys it.
Globally speaking, reducing carbon will cost some amount of money, and that amount is not decreased by engaging in carbon trading.
OK, then riddle me this: How can God know everything and people have free will? If God knew the way everything would play out when he chose to set up the universe the way he did, then we can't have free will.
Not true. If we put a piece of chocolate 5 feet from an active ant hill, we can know with virtual certainty that within a few minutes that chocolate will be covered with ants. We didn't force the ants to go to the chocolate, but our knowledge of the behavior of ants allows us to know what will happen even though those ants still have free will.
Now, to borrow a line from a movie, "Multiply it by infinity, and take it to the depth of forever, and you will still have barely a glimpse of what I'm talking about."
Sorry, I have a life and a job. When there is contention for my available time, Slashdot participation suffers.
Kudos to you for holding a grudge and remembering me. To be honest, I seldom remember anyone's userid and each response is based on the message I'm replying to and not on any history I may have with that person.
You need to divide those numbers by the per capita GDP of the country. Sure, an average American might generate 100 times more CO2 than someone in Botswana, but they probably generate 1000 times as much wealth for the world. And anyone that says that the amount of wealth generated by an individual is not important is completely out of touch with reality and doesn't understand the economic reality of the world--and they probably treat global warming more as a political and religious issue than a practical, pragmatic one.
Look at efficiency, not just the raw totals. It's the only way to fairly compare nations with drastically different levels of economic output.
Fixing global warming will cost certain companies billions of dollars, although with carbon trading the economy as a whole doesn't really suffer.
You think that "fixing" global warming will not cause the economy to suffer because of carbon trading? Slept through economics, didn't you?
Assuming global warming is real and assuming we need to make significant changes to industry to "fix" it, yes, it will effect the economy and carbon trading will not change that. Money will be spent implementing technologies that should reduce pollution; now you may make the argument that that is worthwhile, but don't make the argument that it won't effect the economy.
Carbon trading doesn't eliminate the cost of implementing clean technology; it just creates an incentive. Money is still being spent that otherwise wouldn't have to be spent which is either going to effect profits, employee wages, or the cost of goods sold (thus the cost that everyone pays for them). None of these are good unless the economy is severely overheated and driving up inflation. Regardless, "fixing" global warming will effect the economy--it'll cause it to slow down. That's simple economics.
Those that think that science (i.e. those that are involved in it) are somehow pure and only care about the truth and think that science is immune to politics are naive.
After years of controversy, 71 percent of Americans now say they think global warming is real.'"
And probably 95% (or more) of Americans haven't actually researched the topic and are simply believing what they've had pounded into their head for over a decade. Unfortunately, 71% of Americans would probably believe in the tooth fairy if they hear it on the nightly news week after week for a decade.
I suspect that citing the Bible would be a waste of time with you since, based on your response, it doesn't sound like you believe in it anyway.
I agree that this study--or similar studies--cannot identify whether God or simple morale-boosting positive thinking is the reason why a prayer works (or doesn't). I don't think even those conducting this study endeavored to prove or disprove God. Thing is, I don't this the processes used adequately controlled the variables that need to be controlled to even answer the question of whether or not prayers work. Since the only difference was whether or not an extra group of strangers was praying for the subject--and no effort was made to control or identify whether others were already praying for the subject--the case could be made that this study simply shows that the marginal benefit of multiple people praying is not high.
You might as well do a study where two dozen people lift a small car over their heads. The job is already done and adding another dozen people to the effort will not raise the car any higher since the effort is not limited by the number of people lifting, but rather limited to their height. The flawed conclusion is then made that people lifting a car has no impact on the car being lifted.
This study is just as nonsensical. Whether or not one believes in God or prayer, any logical and honest person should see the inherent flaws in the approach used in this study.
God is infallible. But we have free will. God may have a master plan and sometimes someone's healing or death might play a part in it; other times I suspect that our sickness, healing, and death are the result of our own free will, not a result of God's master plan--but the actions themselves are not sufficient to thwart God's master plan. If we pray for God's help, He may answer our prayers. Certainly if our prayers go against the will of God, I can't imagine God answering those prayers. If they don't go against the will of God, I don't presume to know what criteria God uses to decide whether or not to answer a prayer. Bad things do happen to good people so it's not like God will always intervene and cure someone just because he or she is good or Christian. If that were the case, being Christian would not require any faith or trust whatsoever.
Your argument about it being bad prayer is also suspect too- had the study gone the other way you would have likely said the study is proof.
First, don't presume to know what I would and wouldn't have said under another hypothetical situation. There are only two beings that know what I'd do in such a situation, and you're not one of them.
Second, I didn't say it was a bad prayer. But I do believe the earnest prayers of people that are personally related to the subject are a lot more powerful than unknown third parties. I'd rather have my family and closest friends praying for me than some unknown group of hundreds of people I don't know. Not that I think the latter would hurt, but I do believe the former scenario would be much more effective.
If the results showed that prayer had NO effect, I'd be more inclined to believe the study than with a study that suggests that prayer actually hurts the subject. Whether or not God exists, the suggestion that prayer makes someone worse is illogical. I don't presume to know what, but some variable was not properly controlled or compensated for in this study.
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Who determines that need? Who determines what the "cut-off" is for an appropriate sized house or car and what isn't? Like I said, this is a socio-political issue. While your point is taken that someone should not buy something larger than they need, I definitely am not ok with going somewhere where someone is condemned or criticized because of their choice of size. It demands we establish an imaginary line and I'm not comfortable establishing that line in a free society for anyone but myself.
That's exactly why so many people think environmentalists are wacko. Some of us would like to have our immediate environment green, natural, and enjoyable without having to drive 100 miles to a national park. Taking care of the environment isn't just about protecting 5,000 square miles of a national park and feeling good about building the hell out of a local metropolis and destroying what little of nature remains there... it's about making the best use of the environment everywhere... even in urban areas.
Tripling the cost of nuclear energy would still be less than the cost of our dependence on foreign energy. A very small price to pay.
And let's build it hundreds of miles away from all of the people we'll need to work there on a daily basis.
We've built military bases hundreds of miles away from all the people needed to work on them. Guess what happened? Small towns sprouted up right outside the military bases. This is just as much a matter of national security, the exact same thing would happen.
Believe it or not, this is NOT rocket science.
You're weird.
Confirming the increasingly common viewpoint that "real" environmentalists are poor, socialist-inclined liberals. Environmentalism is really a socio-political movement, not a scientific movement based on concern for the environment. Otherwise, how many rooms are in your house would not even be mentioned jokingly in defining whether or not someone is an enviornmentalist.
What's wrong with that? I'll mostly ignore your unnecessary digs and stereotyping against rich people and property values, but whether I'm rich or poor, do I really want to have the beautiful countryside (or hillside, or whatever) visually contaminated by dozens or hundreds of large windmills? Absolutely not! There is more to the environment than just CO2 in the atmosphere. There's also leaving some parts of the wilderness to be in their roughly original form for future enjoyment of both man and beast.
I hate driving through beautiful Southern California (yes, I love the desert) and seeing a huge solar facility just northwest of Four Corners, or that huge wind farm by Palm Springs. You're just out there enjoying nature and the entire view is filled with man-made nonsense that is supposedly envrionmentally "friendly." So instead of generating some invisible CO2 which plants need to generate oxygen, we instead use "clean" alternatives that destroy thousands of acres from a visual, natural, and ecosystem standpoint. Which is really worse on the environment?
In my opinion, we should build some mega-nuclear power plants in the middle of Nevada, hundreds of miles away from any city larger than about 200 people. Use that to generate all the electricity the country needs, 100% clean, no dependency on foreign energy, and we could use it to generate the hydrogen for fuel cells for our cars. We could almost entirely withdrawl from the Middle East and wouldn't even blink if/when the cost of petroleum exceeds $200/barrel. We could be 100% energy independent and 100% clean in a friggin' decade without any need to wait around for "alternative energy" that isn't ready for prime time yet. We have the technology now. We just need to decide to use it.
Dogs and cats living together... MASS HYSTERIA! :)
The death of our civilization? This is exactly the kind of fear-mongering that causes environmentalists to lose any shred of credibility they may have had.
We're talking extremes here. As long as there are humans, yes, I want to make sure we leave it in the same or better condition than we received it. But there's no inherent reason that we should go to great lengths to "save the earth" if doing so is to the detrement of humans. Sorry, we're the dominant species and we should act in our own self-interest. Many times that will also be in the interest of other speices. When it isn't, our own self-interest comes first.
And what kind of argument is your no action being better than action? I guess you don't care that not only ecosystems go desert, but that the population from that region dies? 1 Billion people die so you can keep driving your status quo? Or work on trying to improve technologies to reduce emissions, ideally while increasing throughput. Me, I vote for the latter.
Like I said, if taking action would result in decreased wealth that would ultimately kill 2 billion (rather than 1 billion), then yes, doing nothing saves a billion lives and that's the course of action I'd advocate.
I am not saying efficiency isn't important, but you don't seem to understand, if the tipping point to global warming is 10,000,000 additional tons of CO2 (I'm making that number up), it doesn't matter that the ROI of the new technology that generates 10,000,000 additional tons is a few hundred million dollars, it matters that the tipping point was reached.
True, assuming that passing the "tipping point" really causes some major disasters. If it just warms the planet, scorches some earth, and leads to a billion deaths but taking action slows the economy and makes us unable to feed 2 billion people, I'd rather go past the tipping point and go with the 1 billion deaths rather than 2 billion.
Of course all these numbers are made up, but we can't rush blindly into a "save the environment" mode without very careful and honest evaluations of the impact on the ecomomy. Killing the economy could very well kill more people than "killing" the environment. Do I know that's the case? No, I don't think anyone does. But it's high time that people realize that mucking with the economy can be just as dangerous as mucking with the environment.
No, but humans do. And should. We CANNOT adopt an "environment at any cost" approach. Other than our own survival, there is no particular reason to "save the planet." If the human race goes extinct tomorrow, do we care if the planet still is green or is a barren rock? A few extreme environmentalists might, but pragmatically speaking, if we aren't on this planet, it really doesn't matter if earth is a copy/paste of Mars or if it's a lush green paradise.
Now if humans survive, sure, I'd like to maintain the planet so it's a nice place to live in. Not because I particularly care if a particular species of insect goes extinct, but because it's nice to live in a nice, green planet. But my interest in "saving the planet" is really an interest in saving ourselves.
So... if, in an extreme case, we calculate that "saving the world" (i.e., stopping generation of CO2, or whatever the environmental prescription is) causes us to generate lower economic activity (and it must, it's an absolute certainty), and that lower economic activity results in less wealth which makes us less able to feed our people and keep us healthy. Let's say that costs 2 billion human lives. If the cost of ignoring the CO2 problem caused certain areas to go arid and lead to the starvation of "only" 1 billion humans, it turns out that no action is better than action!
I really don't care what's good for the planet. I care what's good for man. That may sound crass, but it's the only truth that makes sense unless you think the planet is a god and that a bunny rabbit is as important as any given man. People that believe that are too extreme to contribute anything useful to the debate.
Humans care about those acronyms, but ecosystem doesn't care. Look at it this way (using smoke as an example). Everyone in a community works at a factory, which has a woodburning furnace. Everyone else burns wood to heat their homes. The factory is more efficient in using the wood to make stuff. Obviously homes produce squat. The homes overall produce 40% of the smoke, and the factory makes up the rest. More efficient processes allow the workers to make more stuff, but the smoke output stays the same. Does the environment give a crap that the factory makes more stuff while producing the same amount of smoke? Or does it care only about the quantity of smoke?
Of course the environment doesn't care. But we do. We recognize pollution as a necessary evil. So if we recognize that we're going to create it, we should at least make sure we're getting as much bang for our "pollution buck" as possible. That means efficiency is important.
The comparison to home vs. industrial is not a valid comparison. I'm not saying that people should freeze in the winter so that a factory can run its operations. But it's not valid for people to criticize the U.S. as the #1 producer of CO2 without considering the worldwide economic benefit derived from it.
The environment got along well long before man arrived, got along well while we were relatively small in population. Obviously we don't want to go back to those days, because that would mean a massive dieoff of us. But it may mean we end up subsidizing other nations so we are all efficient, and incentives set up to continue to work on reducing our wastes being released to the environment
Well, there ya go. Now you're saying that we might have to subsidize less efficient countries. Perhaps. But how are you going to find out who is inefficient? By dividing per capita pollution by per capita GDP... exactly like I said.
Yes, it does matter. Because unless you're what could only be called an environmental wacko, you will realize that economic activity is absolutely, positively necessary. You will also recognize that this economic activity will produce some amount of impact on the environment. We don't want economic product to decrease because it's economic productivity that creates wealth, and without wealth we cannot maintain the health of the people of this world (*)--we can't feed them, we can't take care of them medically, etc. The wellbeing of the world depends on economic activity.
So if we recognize that economic activity is what feeds and maintains the world, we recognize that we should not decrease economic activity. Thus the question is, how can we generate the most economic output compared to the impact on the environment? You can measure and compare that by taking the per capita carbon output and dividing it by the per capita GDP (**).
So, yes, it does matter how much money (wealth) is generated. If I produce 10 tons of CO2 and generate only $10 of wealth, I'm actually doing more of a disservice to the world than someone who produces 100 tons of CO2 but generates $1000 of wealth.
(*) Typically, someone at this point will complain about the unequal distribution of wealth in the world. I don't deny there's an unequal distribution, but that doesn't change the fact that the world cannot be maintained without the generation of wealth. How it is distributed is a different issue than impact on the environment, though I think many people that believe in global warming are using the environment in an effort to redistribute wealth. And that's why this is a political issue rather than a scientific one these days.
(**) This assumes that we agree that CO2 is the major pollutant that should be measured. Personally, I'd be more concerned with things that dirty the air rather than CO2. I'd rather generate a 1000 tons of CO2 than 10 tons of smoke from burning coal. But whatever the measure of pollution is, the per capita production of that pollutant must be divided by the per capita GDP to find out who the worst offenders are. Someone that produces only 1/100th of the pollution that we are but is only generating 1/1000th the wealth is not generating enough wealth for the amount of pollution they are generating.
Globally speaking, reducing carbon will cost some amount of money, and that amount is not decreased by engaging in carbon trading.
Not true. If we put a piece of chocolate 5 feet from an active ant hill, we can know with virtual certainty that within a few minutes that chocolate will be covered with ants. We didn't force the ants to go to the chocolate, but our knowledge of the behavior of ants allows us to know what will happen even though those ants still have free will.
Now, to borrow a line from a movie, "Multiply it by infinity, and take it to the depth of forever, and you will still have barely a glimpse of what I'm talking about."
Kudos to you for holding a grudge and remembering me. To be honest, I seldom remember anyone's userid and each response is based on the message I'm replying to and not on any history I may have with that person.
Look at efficiency, not just the raw totals. It's the only way to fairly compare nations with drastically different levels of economic output.
You think that "fixing" global warming will not cause the economy to suffer because of carbon trading? Slept through economics, didn't you?
Assuming global warming is real and assuming we need to make significant changes to industry to "fix" it, yes, it will effect the economy and carbon trading will not change that. Money will be spent implementing technologies that should reduce pollution; now you may make the argument that that is worthwhile, but don't make the argument that it won't effect the economy.
Carbon trading doesn't eliminate the cost of implementing clean technology; it just creates an incentive. Money is still being spent that otherwise wouldn't have to be spent which is either going to effect profits, employee wages, or the cost of goods sold (thus the cost that everyone pays for them). None of these are good unless the economy is severely overheated and driving up inflation. Regardless, "fixing" global warming will effect the economy--it'll cause it to slow down. That's simple economics.
Tony: No. He just didn't sign Kyoto.
Bush just put the coffin in the cemetary and buried it. Kyoto was dead before Bush was elected.
And probably 95% (or more) of Americans haven't actually researched the topic and are simply believing what they've had pounded into their head for over a decade. Unfortunately, 71% of Americans would probably believe in the tooth fairy if they hear it on the nightly news week after week for a decade.
I agree that this study--or similar studies--cannot identify whether God or simple morale-boosting positive thinking is the reason why a prayer works (or doesn't). I don't think even those conducting this study endeavored to prove or disprove God. Thing is, I don't this the processes used adequately controlled the variables that need to be controlled to even answer the question of whether or not prayers work. Since the only difference was whether or not an extra group of strangers was praying for the subject--and no effort was made to control or identify whether others were already praying for the subject--the case could be made that this study simply shows that the marginal benefit of multiple people praying is not high.
You might as well do a study where two dozen people lift a small car over their heads. The job is already done and adding another dozen people to the effort will not raise the car any higher since the effort is not limited by the number of people lifting, but rather limited to their height. The flawed conclusion is then made that people lifting a car has no impact on the car being lifted.
This study is just as nonsensical. Whether or not one believes in God or prayer, any logical and honest person should see the inherent flaws in the approach used in this study.
First, don't presume to know what I would and wouldn't have said under another hypothetical situation. There are only two beings that know what I'd do in such a situation, and you're not one of them.
Second, I didn't say it was a bad prayer. But I do believe the earnest prayers of people that are personally related to the subject are a lot more powerful than unknown third parties. I'd rather have my family and closest friends praying for me than some unknown group of hundreds of people I don't know. Not that I think the latter would hurt, but I do believe the former scenario would be much more effective.